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Classroom feedback – Global IT Project Management

Transitioning to Agile

Thank you for your time and participation in our discussion of agile and the realities of project management in startups and larger orgs. Please comment anonymously below so that your instructors can learn what was good, not-so-good, and improve in the future. Please include two pieces to your post:

The discussion showed us the pros and cons of both waterfall and agile and how certain projects called for certain methods that would be more beneficial than the other.

The level of engagement with the class was great. Both of you maintained high levels of eye contact with the audience, and made sure to understand each person’s comment when they participated. However, the beginning portion where we were going over the pros and cons of agile and waterfall went on for slightly longer than it should have been. The benefit of having professionals come in is to hear about real life experiences, but they often reverted back to theory immediately after brief 30-second recap of an experience. We heard a lot about why you guys prefer one or the other, but the reasoning were mostly phrased in relation to a certain aspect of the methodology, rather than showcasing it through a story.

I would like to thank you for a lovely class session. I was able to learn a lot from your and other student’s real-life experiences.

1. Any takeaways from our discussion
Agile is not the magical solution for failing projects. It is an option
available for project owners to manage things differently.
2. Any areas for improvement
The only shortfall I felt was the inability of discussing the case study.
I got curious about it. My suggestion would be to finish all closed
interactions before opening the floor for discussion.

The class discussion was incredibly insightful thanks to the shared stories and personal experience of yourselves as well as my classmates. in regards to the material, there was a perfect introduction and baseline refresher on the concepts that support agile as well as waterfall. The key takeaway that I was incredibly relieved to hear from your shared real world experience was that there is no winning solution but rather what works best based on the conditions. Often we are taught that one solution is the best but thanks to the comments heard, I know understand the need to build your own methodology out that best suites your needs.

In regards to improvement I would have loved to see the case study was all about. Although there was some time restraints we could have swept over the theory faster in order to leave time to see the case.

Takeaways from our discussion:
First I learned some specific theory about waterfall and agile methods. Then the real life experiences helped me to understand how to implement both methodologies and what is the difficulties/problems of such implementation.

Any areas for improvement:
In my opinion, it is better to connect some particular points we mentioned in the theory part to the tips in the experiences we have talked about. For example, when we are sharing a project experience, we could talk about that which advantage or disadvantage of waterfall or agile change the result or progresses of the project.

Takeaways from our discussion:
First I learned some specific theory about waterfall and agile methods. Then the real life experiences helped me to understand how to implement both methodologies and what is the difficulties/problems of such implementation. Thanks for sharing the experiences!

Any areas for improvement:
In my opinion, it is better to connect some particular points we mentioned in the theory part to the tips in the experiences we have talked about. For example, when we are sharing a project experience, we could talk about that which advantage or disadvantage of waterfall or agile change the result or progresses of the project.